TRIBUNAL AIMS TO AMPUTATE MORE THAN 90% OF MILOSEVIC'S DEFENSE CASE
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 5, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The Judges at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic announced that most of the time they allotted for the defense case has been used. Less than 30 working days, which translates to roughly 10 calendar weeks, remain in the time allotted to Milosevic.

The prosecution took 296 days to present its case, but the Judges only allotted Milosevic 150 days to present his defense. In other words, he was given about half as much time that the prosecution was given. The tribunal's strategy is to convict him by denying adequate time to present his defense. The Judges have repeatedly insisted that they will not give him any time beyond the 150 days.

Milosevic wants to call 1,631 defense witnesses, so far less than 10% of that list has testified. If the tribunal sticks to its deadline, more than 90% of the defense evidence will go unheard, and the trial will not be seen as fair.

Judge Robinson announced that the trial chamber had conducted a further investigation into the video of Paddy Ashdown cavorting around with armed KLA terrorists in 1998. During Gen. Delic's testimony Milosevic paraphrased Ashdown as saying "the fact that the KLA is so poorly armed is a scandal for the international community".

According to the tribunal's analysis of the tape Ashdown's exact words were, "the fact that the international community has not done enough is a scandal." It is worth noting that Ashdown was speaking to a group of armed Albanians when he said that. In fact, he was inspecting their rifles as he was speaking to them.

Ashdown can be seen with two groups of armed Albanians on the tape. The first group is wearing KLA uniforms, and the second group is wearing civilian clothes. Ashdown admits that a member of the KLA took him to see the second group, but insists that the second armed group were not members of the KLA.

After the Judge's comments on the Ashdown video, Col. Bogoljub Janicevic continued his cross-examination.

Mr. Nice continued questioning Janicevic about the events in Racak. As usual Mr. Nice conducted his cross-examination in a perfidious manner. The prosecutor attempted to put words into the witness's mouth. The prosecutor falsely claimed that Janicevic testified that the bodies found by William Walker had been shot where he found them.

Janicevic denied that he had said anything of the sort, and told the prosecutor not to put words in his mouth. Even the Judges admitted that they did not remember hearing any such testimony from the witness.

Mr. Nice attempted to attack Janicevic's credibility. In a futile effort to prove that policemen mistreated prisoners at the Urosevac SUP the prosecutor recalled the testimony of the secret witness codenamed "K5."

When "K5" testified for the prosecution he claimed that he was an informer for the Serbian police and that he had helped them plan atrocities that they could commit and blame on the KLA. This secret witness also claimed to have seen Serbian police officers murder two men. Of course he did not remember details such as names or dates, but that sort of vague testimony was typical during the prosecution case.

Janicevic responded by testifying that "K5" was a known criminal. He said that "K5" was known by police to be a thief and a rapist. This testimony jibes perfectly with "K5's" own witness statement where he admits that he is a thief and a drunkard.

Mr. Nice criticized Janicevic for providing documents that detailed disciplinary action taken against policemen who violated the law. Even though several of the documents dealt with serious crimes like murder and rape, the prosecutor was critical because some of the material dealt with less serious offences, such as theft and looting.

It's not clear what Mr. Nice's point was, but Janicevic took the opportunity to point out that this evidence illustrates the strict discipline of the Serbian police, where even minor offences were prosecuted.

Mr. Nice also made a lot of the fact that a customs official had been prosecuted because he overcharged people on their exit tax, and kept the extra money for himself.

Several countries charge exit taxes (also known as departure taxes) when you leave their territory. Yugoslavia's departure tax was roughly 4 U.S. dollars. Mr. Nice tried to argue that the exit tax was a scheme to extort money from fleeing refugees. Janicevic insisted that most of the refugees weren't obligated to pay and that they didn't pay.

Col. Janicevic will continue his testimony when the trial resumes on Tuesday, October 18th. There will be no trial next week.

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